Tides
by lewdness
Summary: Riku stays, because a few mushrooms and a bottle of water with a raft won’t take him anywhere. Besides, with her at his side, he figures that everything is worth it in the end. [RikuKairi][Oneshot, post KH2]


Title: Tides  
Rating: T  
Pairings, if any: RikuKairi  
Summary: Riku stays, because a few mushrooms and a bottle of water with a raft won't take him anywhere. Besides, with her at his side, he figures that everything is worth it in the end.  
Word Count: 2147  
Warnings: fluffffff.  
post kh2  
A/N: Thanks to both marmaladecat and fantacination for being lovely and betaing this for me. :) Thank you guys so much for your helpful comments and such; you guys are awesome. Does not take place in the MB AU, sorry.

--

Riku sits on the beach almost every day.

Sometimes, it's early in the morning, when there's the moistness in the air that's nearly palpable and dew is sliding off of the huge leaves of the palm trees. He's always on the curved paopu tree that early, long legs straddling the branch with his back pressed to the back and Kairi always approaches slowly as if she's afraid that he'll bolt as soon as he catches sight of her. "Morning," she whispers, every time without fail, and it's the quiet, simple assurance that they'll see each other in the morning that keeps him arriving at the tree before dawn and her not long after.

At night, it's a slightly different story. She finds him sprawled out on the roof of his house, of all places, usually in his pajamas still, with a sheet spread out on top of the roof. (The first time she sees him up there, she is frozen to the spot, wondering what it was that lurked in the dark and why it looks like a body, up until it moved and she hears Riku's low voice calling an invitation if she wanted to come. It was the hesitance in his voice that makes her stick her sandal-clad foot in the unsteady trellis, splinters digging into her fingers and she almost slips, slides and falls to the ground, saved only by the warm, solid grip of Riku catching her hand and pulling her up safely. From that night on, the two would meet up there, another unspoken agreement.) She's half-asleep when she goes there sometimes; yet, even with that she always goes to that place to see him, fingers and sandals working their way up the trellis to where he sits and his warm hands catching her when she's about to fall.

The first night she sits with him and simply looks up at the stars, a good foot of distance between them, but it is comfortable and quiet.

The second night, he's brought another sheet so it's a little more comfortable because while he doesn't mind the coldness of the roof, he thinks that she might; he says nothing about it and so she simply smiles at him.

The third night runs into the fourth and the fifth and the sixth, all with mornings that both find are becoming more and more welcome, up until the fourteenth night. It's raining, like it does on the islands, especially now that it's leading into the monsoon season.

She can't find any of her clean jeans or pants at all for that matter, even after searching for nearly ten minutes and finally decides that she doesn't care. Digging into a pile that she knows is pretty much clean, she tugs on a simple pair of well-worn, loose jeans and ignores the wrinkles and creases that would no doubt make her mother irritated for daring to go out of the house with wrinkled clothes.

Stepping of her window, she jumps down and runs as fast as she can down the slippery, sandy road, up to where she can see Riku's window is open just the slightest bit. The sheets are still up there though, and that confuses her. She climbs the trellis, yelping as she at first can't get her feet in the holes and then again as she slips and nearly plummets back down before she can get to his window. Before she falls, two hands grip her arms and she sees Riku, blue-green eyes glowing with each flash of lightning and effortlessly, he pulls her up to the small porch outside his window.

"Sorry…I thought I was getting better at not falling." she manages around slight pants from the running and from the slight scare of falling. Riku's silent, a warm shadow only a few inches before her and she wants to just press up against him and try to absorb that warmth and attempt to share some of her own. "I…I couldn't find any clothes other than these."

There's a long moment of silence, broken only by the rain falling around them and then Riku lets out a quiet laugh that startles them both. "Oh. Oh." Kairi fumbles for words, torn between blushing and laughing and settles for a choked off giggle that morphs into a shiver as cold rain trails down her skin.

Riku notices and his warm hands take her own, drawing her out of the rain and into his room while he turns and digs through a pile of clothes on his bed, coming up with what looks like a normal sized hooded-sweatshirt when he's holding it, but when he helps her put it on (with the quiet, almost shy murmur of, "I don't want you getting sick,") they find that it hangs about her shoulders like a bizarre kind of dress but it's warm and it smells like Riku. She doesn't object.

"Let's go up there again anyway," she suggests, twining their fingers together and tugging gently. With a slow start, Riku's following her, helping her up the trellis and onto the roof where rivulets of rain are sliding down into the gutter; the water is icy cold and coupled with the wind, it makes her huddle into the large hooded sweatshirt, ignoring how both of them are soaked to the bone in only a few moments. There is hardly any room between them, and the lightning and thunder are crashing around them. It's probably not the best idea to be sitting on the roof of a house in the middle of a storm, but she finds that she doesn't care, not when Riku slips an arm around her shoulder when he sees her shiver.

It's almost absently that she reaches up her hand to tangle their fingers together; it's more than natural when she shifts a little at the same time as he does, their movements slow and almost awkward against the cold sheets that stick to their skin. Kairi slides fingers across his rain-damp cheeks, fingertips brushing against his barely-parted lips and meets his eyes, breath catching when he leans forward and kisses her. He tastes like rain, warmth, mint and Riku all rolled into one and she can't help the content noise that escapes her as he kisses her a little harder, tangling hands in her hair and shifting so they're pressed a little closer. Kairi returns it, fingers sliding across his cheeks and down his jaw to hold his neck, trying to drink in his warmth all that she can.

Riku makes a soft noise in her mouth, like this is everything he's been waiting for –and it is, because of all the things that have gone wrong in his life, this is one of the inarguably right things- because she's warmth and light and taking away his darkness, easing away the burden on his heart and –

He breaks away with a sharp gasp, sea-green eyes pale in the flashes and flickers of lightning, and he pulls away quickly, cheeks flushed the slightest bit. "I-I'm sorry. You should…" he pauses and then gives up on words. He tugs the hood up over her hair and then starts to urge her down the trellis. She's confused, that much he can tell, but how was he supposed to tell her that she can't take his darkness into herself; it's not right, it's not her burden to bear. When she's finally down, he says nothing to her, save for a, "Get some sleep," and then he's swinging himself back up into his room and closing the windows on her. The rejection hurts more than anything and Kairi touches her fingers to her kiss-swollen lips and heads home in the rain, still wearing his sweatshirt.

-

Sora notices something wrong on the eve of the fifteenth morning; Kairi thought that he hadn't noticed how she and Riku had slipped away every morning, but he had evidently. "You two were really obvious," he says dryly, and Kairi wants to laugh because Sora is nothing if not the King of All Things Not Subtle. She wasn't sure what to expect, but when he cups her cheeks in his hands and meets her eyes calmly, she feels something in her relax and untangle. "Where is he? I haven't seen him all morning- what happened?"

Hesitantly, Kairi relays the night before to him, a flush creeping up her cheeks when she gets to the part where they kissed. Sora whistles loudly and laughs, his arms sliding around her in a boyishly strong hug. He says nothing for a long while, simply listening until she finishes. Then, when eventually she falls silent, he grabs her hands in his and pulls her up, dusting himself off. "Ice cream," he says by way of explanation and drags her off arm-in-arm, ignoring any protests she might have voiced. They get to his house and he grabs two of the ice cream bars sitting in his lonely freezer, tosses one to her and then makes his way to the living room to sprawl out on the couch with the lanky grace of a teenage boy.

"I know I'm not one of your girlfriends. Definitely not Selphie," Sora starts, one leg hanging off the edge of the couch and his whole body relaxed. "'Cause it'd be weird if I was, 'cause…" he makes a movement, gesturing to his chest and then turns his eyes to the ceiling. "Yeah, but anyway. You know Riku. Riku's had issues since everything happened and that's what makes him Riku, y'know? We just gotta learn how to deal with it."

Kairi stares at him for a long minute and bites off the edge of her ice cream. "That's surprisingly deep for you, Sora," she teases after a pause from mulling over what he's said. "You sick or something?"

"No." Sora snickers from where he's sprawled, biting half the ice cream off and then chewing it; it makes Kairi wince because that much cold in her mouth makes her teeth hurt. "You don't remember? Y'said the same thing to me when we first got back."

No, she doesn't remember, but from the content way that he's watching her, she finds that she's satisfied to leave it go and simply just sit there with him, the fan whirring above them.

-

She's not sure if she'll find Riku by the shore like he usually is –was, her mind corrects. It's not quite dawn- maybe a half hour till then she estimates as she picks her way through still-damp sand. She can see the dim outline of the tree, framed by the cloudless sky and ocean, but sees no body propped up against rough bark and trunk. Kairi bites her bottom lip, making her way to the beach and then squinting to maybe a hundred feet down the beach where she sees a…lump of driftwood.

Pursing her lips, she makes her way down and then pauses when she sees a glint of silver hair and a sprawl of pale skin. Slowly, she edges forward until she is standing beside him, staring down at the crudely made raft from three years ago. It is too small for him- he'd gained a few feet in those years and his legs hang off the edge, the surf licking at his bare toes.

"Riku…" One blue-green eye cracks open but he says nothing. "Riku, stop."

She comes to stand on the empty side of the raft and then gives up, kicking off her shoes and comes to lie next to him, that careful inch of distance between them, broken only by her hand over his heart. "You know?" he says quietly, looking up at the stars and resting a hand on hers. "I kind of wonder what might have happened if we'd left. The Islands, I mean. Could we have avoided everything?"

Kairi shuffles closer to him, oh-so-relieved when he doesn't resist and only curls an arm around her gently. "No," she whispers, her voice cracking slightly. "Riku…don't go, okay?"

The silence grows to nearly unbearable levels, as Kairi lies there with her head pillowed on Riku's chest to listen to his heart beat strongly as a reminder that he's there. "Where would I go?" he asks softly, closing his eyes and letting the water lap at their feet. "A few mushrooms and a bottle of water won't get me anywhere."

"Sometimes happiness is found when…" Kairi paused, holding his hand a little tighter. "When you're not so focused on finding it. Focus on other goals and maybe there's happiness there. Just don't leave us behind while you look for it."

Riku laughs quietly; the sound reverberates in his chest and makes Kairi hide a small smile against the soft material of his shirt. "Okay," he agrees quietly.

He'd go with that for right now; the tide could take them away another time and this time it would be all of them.

-

RikuKairi needs more loooove, just like the rest of the het part of this fandom. D: Please let me know if you liked or didn't like; crit is always welcome!

Also, guys, FFN now has that thing where it lets authors know if you fav and stuff. Please, if you have the time to fav something of mine (or any other author on this site) drop them a review as well. It makes our day and gives us more of a reason to write because we know people are out there who are enjoying our stuff enough to let us know. :)


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